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The Nightmare Begins
Plot Summary ]] The Irkens are a race that desire universal domination. Their leaders, Almighty Tallest Red and Purple, have just begun assigning the Invaders their missions for Operation Impending Doom II in the Convention Hall planet, Conventia (The Great Assigning). However, the most dreaded and infamous Irken ever to live, Zim, arrives in hopes of getting an assignment of his own. Zim was banished from the Irken Empire and sent to work on Foodcourtia when he blew up the other Invaders during Operation Impending Doom I. "Quitting" his banishment once he hears about the new Operation, Zim begs for an assignment and the Tallest reluctantly send him to a planet outside the reaches of the Empire of no real interest to the Irkens, which turns out to be Earth. After receiving a poorly-constructed SIR Unit made out of garbage named GIR, Zim begins his long journey to his "mission". Little does he know, however, that an Earth child has tuned into the meeting on Conventia, and is now alert for an alien invasion. Six months later, Zim finally arrives on a planet called Earth. He lands and creates a human disguise for himself, and a dog costume for GIR. Zim then sketches a picture of a "normal" human house into a capsule with a drill, which bores into the Earth and creates a huge underground base, waking up the entire neighbourhood in the process. Zim then enters his new base and searches for a place to learn about the weaknesses of the planet. Ultimately, he decides to join the local Skool. His disguise fools all of the students, except Dib, who tries to prove to his classmates that Zim is an alien. However, they don't believe him, so Dib attempts to capture Zim himself with Alien Sleep Cuffs. After a lengthy chase, Zim calls GIR and has him take him back to the base. However, GIR leaves a trail of smoke behind that Dib follows. Zim hides inside his house, while Dib stands outside and vows to expose Zim for the alien menace that he is. However, the robotic gnomes in Zim's front yard destroy Dib's cuffs in the middle of his rant. Slightly discouraged, Dib decides to return home, but says that he will be back. Zim, unconcerned about the human, dusts himself off, and contacts the Almighty Tallest (who are shocked that he is still alive), informing them that he is working hard on his mission and would take care of the humans before the armada even reached the planet. As the transmission ends, the two Tallest look at each other with dread in their eyes. Facts of Doom Trivia of Doom *This episode is longer than any other episode due to the longer opening credits. *When Ms. Bitters says "Go home now" you can see a stick figure drawn in the corner of the board. *It is mentioned in The Frycook What Came from All that Space that Zim blew up every other Invader during his rampage on Irk, which is shown in the beginning. *Almighty Tallest Red has light pink eyes in this episode. Both of the Tallest were redesigned during the first season, and they appear as they do throughout the rest of the series in Germs. **This episode marks the only time they appeared with their original designs. *Even though Zim drew the house with his left hand, Jhonen states that he is not left-handed, but that he's advanced and therefore ambidextrous. *It is revealed in this episode that Invaders have self destruct options on their gloves, seemingly in case their cover is under threat. The option is only seen in this episode, as Zim never considers self-destruction again. *In the scene where Zim tries finding a home, he drives past a radio station called 105.5 WTFU standing for "Wake the **** Up". In Hamstergeddon, a related news channel called WHUH appears as Channel 6. *This episode ranked #36 on '100 Greatest Nicktoon Episodes'. *In the episode Backseat Drivers From Beyond the Stars, the background of the Resisty's ship shows computer screens, with images on them from the control panel from the beginning of this episode. *The subtitiles on Netflix for this episode spell Irken as Urkin. **Also when it says "Proceed to the docking ring" Netflix subtitles misspell it as "Proceed to the talking ring". **The closed captions on the DVD have an error when a student talks to another student behind Zim, in regards to Dib after Zim makes a comment about him being crazy. The child says, "Man, we almost believed him", when the captions say "Pam, we almost believed him". Things You Might Have Missed *Keef appears in this episode, albeit as a background character. The back of his head can be seen as Ms Bitters is introducing Zim, as well as when Zim is making his introduction speech, and the camera pans to Dib, although he is drawn slightly differently. He is seen again when one of the Skoolchildren talks about Dib being insensitive, and once again, one of the first children running out of the building as the bell rings. He appears a total of four times. *The dark blue planet in which all the arrows point out from on the screen behind the Tallest has been confirmed as Irk, the Irken home planet. The arrows symbolize the planets marked for "Galactic Conquest". *The disguise that Zim deems as being "too ugly" is series creator Jhonen Vasquez, and the disguise Zim deems as being "too stinky" is series director Steve Ressel. *After Zim puts on his disguise, GIR's eyes flash for a few milliseconds. *This marks the first time in the series in which someone broke the fourth wall. In this case, when Dib pointed out to Zim, the camera moves over to Zim then back to Dib. When he says "Right there!" more clearly, the camera then moves back to Zim and freezes there. *The second time the fourth wall is broken is when the words Weird and Sitting fly in front of Zim's face, and his eyes follow the words. *During this episode, Invader Skoodge has various scenes with and without his PAK. *When the announcer in the beginning is mentioning the gift shop, a billboard can be seen flying by with the picture of the green monkey that is in Zim's house, suggesting he went to the gift shop and got it there. *One of the Irkens walking to the place where the great assigning begins had a purple balloon. Changes and Cuts * The line "radioactive rubber pants" was originally "radioactive rubber ants", but the line was changed to make it more funny and original. * Originally, Zim had to fight a monster called the Digestor as a test of his worthiness. He ended up defeating it by giving it the sandwich Tallest Red gave to him. *The ending where Zim is reporting in to the Tallest was originally to be repeated at the end of every episode. *In the scene where Zim is destroying Irk in the giant robot, the scene was originally going to be much longer with the robot break dancing while shooting lasers and destroying more of the city, but it was too long, and therefore shortened. *When Zim first arrives at Earth, the caption reads "Six months later". However, it never takes six months to arrive at Earth at any other point in the series, so the time card could just be for the amusement of the viewers, as not everything in a cartoon has to be realistic. If this is the case, another example would be in Invasion of the Idiot Dog Brain, when a title card says that Zim has been waiting for GIR to exhaust himself for a whole year. *The milk carton in the fridge where Gaz claims that Dib will pay for drinking the last soda originally had a little girl on it saying "FIND ME!". It then changed to a picture of Rob Hummel and the text beneath it saying "Rob Hummel is Meat". *The scene where Dib pursues Zim was originally longer, but was cut for time. Inconsistencies and Animation Errors *The milk carton in the refrigerator says "Rob Hummel is Meat", but after Dib falls into the sink, it has a picture of a kid with "Find Me!" written below the picture, even though this was originally cut out. *Right after Zim says "Step one went smoothly" after entering his base for the first time, his eye colours are inverted. * When Zim gets his disguise, the legs of his pants are pink, and they keep changing colour throughout a majority of this episode, though more frequently in the second half of the episode. *In one scene Almighty Tallest Red has one ring around his waist, but his waist has three in every other scene. *When Zim makes a comment on GIR’s intelligence, his legs vanish temporarily. *When Zim is asking Ms Bitters about Earth's defences, Zita can be seen in the background, even though she sits behind Zim, and the given angle wouldn't allow her to be seen. *When Zim contacts the Tallest to report on his progress, there is a scene that is showing The Massive, the Irken Imperial Flagship, but none of the smaller ships are around it, despite the fact that The Massive is always escorted by many other smaller ships. *Once the Great Assigning ends, when Almighty Tallest Red says lasers his teeth are the same colour as his skin. *When Zim lands, the symbol on his Voot Cruiser keeps changing from the one-eyed symbol to the two-eyed symbol and then back again. *When Dib is going up to the board to compare and contrast humans from Zim, his glasses temporarily disappear. *When Zim arrives at Skool, Ms. Bitters' dress changes from purple to black several times. *GIR's antenna is almost colourless when he is first presented to Zim. *When GIR says "I saw a squirrel" and Zim looks at him with confusion, he stares at him before he even says "squirrel" *When GIR first puts on his dog costume, he has a collar on him, but when the camera angle changes to his back he doesn't have it on. *When Zim enters his base for the first time, a SIR unit can be seen on the Men's bathroom sign, but later in the episode it's normal again. *When Dib was proving Zim was an alien, Ms. Bitters wasn't behind her desk. *While Dib is saying things that proves Zim is an alien, Zim's PAK disappears many times. *Tak's ship appears in the beginning of the episode. *When Zim looked at his Voot Cruiser 's computer screen as he was nearing the Earth, the screen displayed the word "EARTH" without translating it into Irken symbols. *When Tallest Red spills his drink, his fingers are dark brown instead of green. *Near the end of the episode, as GIR falls on top of Zim, Zim falls offscreen, but GIR disappears. Music Main Article: The Kevin Manthei Invader Zim-phony Special * In the Beginning From the beginning of the episode until right before the Tallest appear. * Smackdown Source During the Tallests' introduction. * Zim Is Late As Zim is flying toward Conventia. * Zim Enters Conventia As Zim pushes his way through the audience to get to the Almighty Tallest. * To Earth As Zim is flying to Earth in his Voot Cruiser, before GIR sings the Doom Song. * Entering Earth's Atmosphere As GIR observes what the "earthenoids" consider to be normal. * Zim's House When Zim first enters his house. *Our First Chase As Dib chases Zim through the city * Dib Doesn't Quit * Leader Report As Zim reports to the Tallest at the end. See also * The Nightmare Begins (Transcript) * Episode 01 Credits * The Nightmare Begins Screenshots Category:Season 1 Category:GIR Filmography Category:Gaz Filmography Category:Dib Filmography Category:Altered Episodes Category:Zim Filmography Category:Almighty Tallest Filmography Category:Skoodge Filmography Category:Ms. Bitters Filmography Category:Keef Filmography Category:Episodes